Franxicana En
My hands move, explore, and assemble.A magical glue unifies my worlds.
Aliciama is my artist name.
I created it from my first names: Alicia María. I like that it contains the word “ama” in Spanish, which comes from the verb to love, because I love life and what I do.
I am Mexican and I live in France.
It’s strange, but here I feel more Mexican than I did back home. Being here awakens something deep within me, as if the environment were inviting me to return to myself, to recognize myself and redefine who I am.
I arrived in France thinking I spoke French, until I discovered that my accent was so strong that many people could not understand me. At my age, my language and my brain are no longer as flexible or adaptable.
When I leave my home, I step into a quieter world, and I believe that has forced me to observe myself and reflect on who I am, on what I feel as I walk through the wet streets of Rennes. The gray weather brushes against my skin, and I shiver.
Who am I really? What is identity? I explore what remains within me after leaving my Mexico behind, and what is now being born as I make this new land my own.
I have always been optimistic, so I tell myself that I want to integrate, that I want to embrace my two nations as if they were only one, to merge them until they can live together within me. That way, I will feel less divided.
I have the feeling of being here and there at the same time. It is as if long roots were growing from my feet, crossing the Atlantic and continuing to draw nourishment from the place where I was born. They will never break. And at the same time, new and smaller roots are beginning to appear on this side of the world, slowly exploring the elements of this soil.
I write, but words are not always enough, which is why I turn to visual expression.
Within me, there are broken fragments. They ask to be seen, rescued, transformed into form and meaning.
How can I represent this duality? How can I show emptiness without losing gratitude, or obstacles and fulfillment, if everything happens at the same time?
My body reacts: with some works I laugh, with others I cry; sometimes my stomach hurts; sometimes I feel blocked, and often I savor them.
And sometimes, time stands still.
My art is a way of harmonizing what lives within me.
Embracing two cultures is, in reality, embracing myself.
Video Deby @entrecrepasytortillas
Video Alexa Berrones
Day and night
When it is still daytime in Mexico, evening is already falling in France. And when I prepare coffee here, in Mexico they are already watching the stars. Only for a few hours do our lights coincide. That is why I sometimes imagine a world with a single clock, a single noon, a single moon visible to everyone at the same time. That way, I would feel my people over there closer, and calls wouldn’t have to wait. But the earth keeps turning, and most of the time we are out of rhythm.
Light and resonance
Some say Mexico has more color than France. I find richness of color in both countries: each culture illuminates me with its own nuances. I vibrate like a pendulum between two cultural beacons, two visual languages, letting both speak to me. I live with two aesthetic sensibilities, two rhythms, two sources of beauty. They do not compete: they converse. And I am the space where they meet.
Odorico
In a mosaic, each fragment alone says little. But together they form something that vibrates—that is where magic happens: a shared language of color, patience, and unity. Odorico filled Rennes with mosaics: pieces that shaped urban identity and everyday beauty. In this collage, I echo his gesture with fragments of my Mexican world, bringing two cultures together within the same harmonious circle.
Medical maze
We arrived. Suddenly, health became an unfamiliar path. One night, my daughter’s pain led me to seek help without knowing where to begin. I found myself inside a maze: closed doors, invisible rules, requirements I didn’t know… Without fully understanding, I followed instructions and left the laboratory in tears, wondering what we were doing so far from home. With time, I came to understand the system, health insurance, and its pathways. Now I look at this maze with less confusion: within its elements and shapes appears a harmony of gradients, like a gesture of gratitude for what I have learned and for the care this country offers me.
God's eye
For the Huichol people, an indigenous group from Mexico, the “Eye of God” is not a decoration, but a vision. They place it on their altars to ask for clarity, like a spiritual compass. In this piece, I have taken that symbolic form and filled it with images of France. The deer, for the Huichol, is a guiding spirit; the messenger between humans and the sacred, the one who walks between dimensions. In this composition, I bring the two countries together. It is a way of blessing my path in both: may it have light and meaning.
Brittany
I was born in an arid land, ochre yellow, where rain is a brief spectacle. And now I live in a region where constant drops form a veil that covers me without warning. Brittany is water. Sometimes the sky opens and offers me magical rainbows that brighten my heart. The Vilaine accompanies me as I walk through the city and listen to seagulls singing as if the ocean were much closer than the map suggests. Yes, Brittany is rain, river, and sea. Brittany is deep blue.
Heart
I am struck by two countries. My heart is in love with both. The arrow pulls in opposite directions, it hurts… but it also shines. My core is crowned by an Aztec feather headdress from my ancestors. Within its lower rays, French elements beat; everything blends. In my heart lives a shared devotion to both nations. It does not ask me to choose: it simply beats and unites.
Xocolatl
In my Mexico, cacao has original roots and ancient memory. It was present in ceremonies, offered to gods, and used as currency. Even today, chocolate holds something ritual: the warmth of the clay pot, the foam awakened by the wooden whisk, the memory of hands that harvest it under the sun. In France, I discover another kind of celebration: chocolates as delicate as edible jewels, crafted with patience and technique. Rustic delight, liquid in a mug, refined or gleaming in a display… each one awakens a different kind of fascination.
Cheese rain
At times, France tastes like cheese to me. The cheesemonger in my neighborhood smiles at me and saves labels for my work, like someone giving stickers to a child. In my Baud Chardonnet neighborhood, I feel that I belong a little more. Cheese is more than food: it is landscape, tradition, and surprise. When I taste one, a world opens; I try another, and a different one unfolds… Sometimes it feels as if cheeses were raining here: intense, mild, whimsical, blue, young, aged… I love this rain.
Croissant
Nostalgia sometimes takes me by surprise, and I face it like a fighter. The star is a perfect croissant that has the power to disarm me: it crunches, melts in my mouth, and everything becomes bliss. Then, for a moment, I forget the distance, the ocean in between, the cactus and the tortilla…
Express
My Spanish is more baroque. My French more minimalist.
Neologism
Francotelefobia. An intense feeling that deserves to be in the dictionary.
Struggle
Struggle… Flow… Struggle… Flow… I feel freer when I stop struggling.
Blend
Even as some pieces move and others are added, I remain a whole.
Question
On the plane, flying over the Atlantic, I always ask myself: am I going or coming back?
Sum
A sum of two countries that come together in a single heartbeat.
Homeland
My initial and my two worlds, with touches of red, white, green, and blue.